Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest
Blacklisting, Integrity in games journalism... At what cost?
-
24-11-2015 1:03pm#1Something of a hot topic of late, I thought it would be good to have a discussion going about what Kotaku has decided to bring to light in the last week or so.
Kotaku got blacklisted by a couple of publishers over the last two years or so and it hasn't been the first time this had happened to them. This mainly happened because they published stories revealing information about upcoming games (Fallout 4 and Assassin' Creed Syndicate) that the publishers had asked them not to publish that publishers ignored requests for comment or just simply sent a statement that condemned the site's actions. (thanks Gizmo!). They went ahead and published the information and subsequently the publishers ceased to interact with them since.
It brings to light the often too-close-for-comfort complicated relationship that exists between the games makers and the games writers.
Personally I dont have a problem with the idea of blacklisting. The publishers are free to share their PR strategy with games sites/journalists as they see fit, so as to fit in with their PR agenda. What they decide to share is up to them but can come across as pretty petty when it appears that they're doing it because the jounalists ruined their PR cycle. The onus isn't on the journalists to preserve that, unless they sign up to that through NDA or agreed upon embargoes.
On the other hand it comes across as petty when sites like Kotaku call them out in public for how their being treated. Neither of their reactions are surprising but aren't to be unexpected.
The problem arises when the relationship between journalists and games makers gets too close for comfort. PR shouldn't expect journalists to adhere to their cycle, and sites should publish information that is of interest to their user-base. I don't blame sites like Kotaku from publishing this information since they are a business and clicks are king! Let their user-base decide what is of interest to them.
Jim Sterling (as divisive as he can be) sums up my feelings on it pretty perfectly.
What are people's thoughts on the whole subject?
Were Kotaku right to publish this information when they got it or should they have sat on it, seeing as it would have gotten out to the public eventually, albeit through the PR cycle some ways down the line?
Why?2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeL34nbEo8sComments
-
Join Date:Posts: 51594
It's not a new issue at all. Publishers have been pulling advertisements from publications for years and refusing to send them review material over bad publicity, broken announcement dates and plain old bad reviews for years. EGM had adverts from Capcom pulled due to a reviewer highlighting issues with the Resident Evil directors cut on PS1 and even before that PC and 16 bit console publications received similar threats.
A lot of this is due to over zealous legal and PR teams that don't realise how the whole process works. The EGM issue was sorted when Capcom management got wind of the issue and the Gamespot, Jeff Gertsmann issue from a few years back was due to a change in management in Gamespot that hadn't a clue how the industry worked and didn't realise that threats of advertising revenue being pulled over poor reviews was just part of how things work (and had the unfortunate effect of making Jeff Gertsmann seem like a much better games journalist than he is).
As long as these publications rely on advertising revenue you are going to get publishers trying to threaten publications with withdrawing revenue.
0 -
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 30,020 CMod ✭✭✭✭
Join Date:Posts: 28727
Gaming news is, most of the time, utterly inane. Beyond the occasional genuine scandal or outrage - like what's going on at Konami, which is a legitimately interesting and bizarre situation - there's actually not a whole lot going on there: it's entertainment news where even the unexpected tends to be very minor and unexciting in the general scheme of things. We've all seen even websites or magazines (because I'm typing from 1998) we like blow nonsense out of proportion. While there's definitely room for serious investigative journalism and reporting into certain situations, the scope for it is very limited. This is confounded by so many publications regurgitating press releases and not a whole lot else, but even the most studious, aspirational gaming publications will likely find themselves struggling to cover much in the way of genuinely worthy news (which is very different from criticism, incidentally). Not to mention the agenda readers set isn't always the most worthwhile anyway.
It's in the pre-release period that the victory of the PR machine is remarkable and likely the envy of PR teams in other industries. They have near absolute control of the media coverage - outside the exceedingly rare times they don't - and frankly have huge amounts of gamers themselves hanging on every word (look at E3, where there's not even a third party - stream host aside - between the potential consumer and the publisher's Gospel). The hype machine is impeccably oiled, and I admire the publications that have opted to de-emphasise it. Part of me even suspects publishers barely care what happens after release, once the pre-orders have been secured and the first couple of days sales are out of the way (and having the media play in a controlled environment rules out the dynamism of the real world). Outside straight-up catastrophes, post-release is an afterthought, as long as the review scores are reasonable.
The area of gaming journalism that interests me most is criticism, and sadly too much of the media views a sort of 'consumer guide' review as the be all and end all there, despite the profound limitations of the form. Good criticism isn't dependent on an embargo or review copy or strong relationships with publishers, and if anything benefits from the discourse that kicks off once a game is in the wild. Say what you will about Kotaku, but I dig their recent policy change of focusing on post-release stuff, even if their content tends to be very light on substantial critical analysis, one or two of their writers excepted. Kill Screen is by far my favourite games writing website at the moment, and their reviews often come days or weeks after release. Naturally the writing is typically substantially more articulate, stylish, thoughtful and probing than the ones rushed out to the publisher set embargo (although there's a few writers who can do that - Rich Stanton at Eurogamer, for example, even with his penchant for hyperbole). There's no shortage of publications out there who will focus on the inherently bland 'gaming news', or be able to throw out a rushed review for Metacritic purposes. But strong criticism doesn't need to be particularly timely (ain't nothing wrong with a good strong retrospective
), or reliant on press releases - and above all I'd just like to see a few more publications that don't conform so diligently to the hype agenda, and spend more time reflecting on the games after the fact (and not just 'players find neat easter egg!' posts with a YouTube embed 
) 0 -
Join Date:Posts: 51594
Some actual genuine games journalism really is hard to find. Even Eurogamer is reduced to spewing out neogaf posts and press releases leaving the weekends to opinion pieces and excellent games journalism.But this also goes the other way with reviewers demanding payment to cover a certain game; TB had a video on it a while back.
I wouldn't call them journalists or reviewers. They are youtubers selling advertising space based on their high subscription rate, basically another form of billboard advertising.
0 -
-
-
Advertisement
-
Robert ninja wrote: »memes.gif
This is exactly what I meant when I said poisoning the well, it's not conductive to any discussion, and is emblematic of how certain groups *ahem* have made it much harder to have a serious discussion about games media. Kotaku being a good or bad site is irrelevant to the much broader discussion, yet you're seemingly trying to drag it down a rabbit hole. And to be fair Robert, we've had plenty of conversations here and on the PC Gaming forum, you're far better than this. Regardless of Kotaku being the catalyst, lets have this much broader discussion, it is way more important.
Besides, I don't think anyone is under any illusions about what Kotaku is, they publish 90% fluff pieces, to see any decent content you have to sift through clickbait and posts about "Check out this cool Cosplay/Mod/Video/Gadget" ad nauseum. You can get a 48 piece Chicken McNugget bucket in Japan? Thanks Kotaku, fascinating. Although I agree, this IS a cool cosplay.
That said I probably wouldn't have heard about Yomawari if it weren't for a Kotaku article popping up in my facebook feed, so there's that.johnny_ultimate wrote: »It's in the pre-release period that the victory of the PR machine is remarkable and likely the envy of PR teams in other industries. They have near absolute control of the media coverage - outside the exceedingly rare times they don't - and frankly have huge amounts of gamers themselves hanging on every word (look at E3, where there's not even a third party - stream host aside - between the potential consumer and the publisher's Gospel). The hype machine is impeccably oiled, and I admire the publications that have opted to de-emphasise it. Part of me even suspects publishers barely care what happens after release, once the pre-orders have been secured and the first couple of days sales are out of the way (and having the media play in a controlled environment rules out the dynamism of the real world). Outside straight-up catastrophes, post-release is an afterthought, as long as the review scores are reasonable.
I think it's even worse than that, because sometimes gamers do the work of the publishers for them in castigating media and reviewers for them, I'm sure we've all seen people lambast reviewers for giving titles less than stellar reviews. I find that's a rather insidious effect of the hype machine, and preorders, it gets people so heavily invested in the product before it's even released. Reviewers who don't toe the line can often be accused of not being objective, as if there were ever such a thing as an objective review in the first place. The emphasis on final scores and metacritic ratings are a problem too, they're so overblown at this point as to be meaningless.
This is one of the reasons why I'm happy I rarely buy new games, initial reviews can be entirely misleading, and hype culture has everyone too invested. I also tend to listen to youtubers like Total Biscuit, I think his WTF is... series is pretty fantastic, and he gives a really good run down about how a game plays and I can get a much better idea if I'll like a game or not than some score.0 -
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Perhaps offended is the wrong word but I'm not sure how else to describe it really. I find the lengths you've gone to across both threads to downplay the actions of the publishers involved, criticise the publication rather than focusing on the actual problem at hand and dismiss the article in question, particularly with the language and standard of opposing links used, to be utterly bizarre to be honest.Robert ninja wrote: »Since when is anyone getting offended?
The positions of most of the threads on KIA too are all over the place, it's almost like many of them think it would have been more ethical for Kotaku to sit on the information they received in each instance for fear of damaging their relationship with the publishers in question rather than printing the stories.
Not exactly, the article provides a fairly straightforward look at the treatment the press can receive when they're seeking comment from a publisher about information they've received from an outside source. It directly contradicts the section of your reply which I quoted. The fact that the journalist in question was from Kotaku is totally irrelevant in this case as per the email from the Arkane CD.Robert ninja wrote: »As for the rest of your post, you're responding to what I said about most games sites as if I was referencing the Kotaku article. I wasn't. I already said I have no problem with the original leak.0 -
Advertisement
-
Perhaps offended is the wrong word but I'm not sure how else to describe it really. I find the lengths you've gone to across both threads to downplay the actions of the publishers involved, criticise the publication rather than focusing on the actual problem at hand and dismiss the article in question, particularly with the language and standard of opposing links used, to be utterly bizarre to be honest.
The lengths I've gone through? You mean a few clicks?
And what is the actual problem at hand? That the press and the publishers have been too close for too long a time? I can agree on that. Whatever the issue at hand is, have at it. I'm all for more discussion. I'm actually tired of drama in here and want people to get back to the topic everyone seems so desperate to focus on but seem to think I'm some juggernaut in the way.The positions of most of the threads on KIA too are all over the place, it's almost like many of them think it would have been more ethical for Kotaku to sit on the information they received in each instance for fear of damaging their relationship with the publishers in question rather than printing the stories.
I don't visit KIA often but I know it's made up of different people so you get different attitudes. No surprise.Not exactly, the article provides a fairly straightforward look at the treatment the press can receive when they're seeking comment from a publisher about information they've received from an outside source.
Ok. That treatment is them not being given favors by companies' marketing arms... which doesn't matter. Or shouldn't.kearneybobs wrote: »I don't think I'm wrong in saying that what Links234 means is, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that we need to remove Kotaku from the equation when discussing this. Instead of Kotaku think 'no name games website'. It allows an all encompassing discussion about the problem at hand, without letting people's biases (positive and negative) get in the way of the bigger discussion to be had.
kkearneybobs wrote: »By posting memes.gif about Kotaku you bring the discussion back to you not liking Kotaku
No I don't, you do. I posted a gif that I thought was funny when I was just looking for a picture from that crappy law and order show. You can laugh at it or ignore it for the shytty tumblr gif it is. I get it, you think it was juvenile or completely not funny, in bad taste, etc. Sorry.kearneybobs wrote: »detracting from a bigger discussion about the relation ships between developers/publishers and ALL games websites.
If a gif can distract the entire thread from such an important topic... and not some offensive or pornographic gif, nor a spam of them. Just a single gif. Then you're choosing to be distracted and are taking it way too seriously. Just ad-block or something if you cant handle seeing it. Or watch the video of that original clip... it makes me laugh every damn time I see it without fail.kearneybobs wrote: »Yes, what Kotaku has done has gotten to this point, but they're not alone in what seems to be endemic in the games/games journalism industry.
Indeed.
But look lads, no hard feelings. I don't know how I come across online (and I mostly don't care) but I really mean no ill. Maybe its the way I type or my sense of humour. I'm glad to see everyone taking a pretty hard stance on game journalism ethicsdespite the GG denial.
Let's get back on topic, so. Because of Gawker's U-turn on what it wants to write about, does anybody think Kotaku will get shut down? And would the timing be bad because of OP? Perhaps set a bad precedent?0 -
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
-
-
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 30,020 CMod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 28727
Listen: any self proclaimed movement that claims to be focused on ethics in gaming journalism yet at the very same time celebrate Milo Yiannopoulos as pretty much their figurehead deserves to be ignored and ridiculed. Actually, if you want to see exactly how ideologically skewed, hypocritical, manipulative, dishonest, logically suspect and just generally ethically dubious journalism can get, there's a perfect example
Back on topic, one thing that irks me a little is the prevalence of the description 'clickbait' in these discussions. To me clickbait is the sort of vague, cockteasing nonsense you see on the likes of Buzzfeed or those horrible 'viral' sites, where literally the only motivation behind them is a quick click. An interesting or provocative headline is a different thing entirely, because the thing is all publications need strong, stand out headlines that draw a reader in. Yeah, most gaming sites probably have a fair share of shallow or light content that needs a strong header to make an impact, but I also think that comes with the territory. If you want real, insidious clickbait, I would direct you to International Business Times and their gaming content, who abuse the **** out of SEOs and cheeky headlines for no other reason than to force unsuspecting readers to click in. Their typically amateurish and substance-free 'content' (a word I use lightly in this case) is basically an afterthought alongside their lust to further embed themselves in Google search results.0 -
Why would those changes at Gawker (rather than Gawker Media) affect Kotaku though? I mean, is it not considerably more likely that the article highlighting their blacklisting by Bethesda and Ubisoft was caused by the lack of launch day reviews for the flagship titles from both companies and readers asking about their absence?Robert ninja wrote: »I don't think so. I think their attempt to look more like journalists because of this change at gawker is the only reason their follow up article even exists and it is objectively the match that lit the OP. But I don't mind if we can drop Kotaku from the discussion.
It would be cool if we could just steer away from Kotaku specifically though, as others have said, it just tends to muddy the conversation. 0 -
johnny_ultimate wrote: »Back on topic, one thing that irks me a little is the prevalence of the description 'clickbait' in these discussions. To me clickbait is the sort of vague, cockteasing nonsense you see on the likes of Buzzfeed or those horrible 'viral' sites, where literally the only motivation behind them is a quick click. An interesting or provocative headline is a different thing entirely, because the thing is all publications need strong, stand out headlines that draw a reader in. Yeah, most gaming sites probably have a fair share of shallow or light content that needs a strong header to make an impact, but I also think that comes with the territory. If you want real, insidious clickbait, I would direct you to International Business Times and their gaming content, who abuse the **** out of SEOs and cheeky headlines for no other reason than to force unsuspecting readers to click in. Their typically amateurish and substance-free 'content' (a word I use lightly in this case) is basically an afterthought alongside their lust to further embed themselves in Google search results.
To be fair Johnny, I don't think people are using the term clickbait without merit here. I mean, take one look at Kotaku and you have fluff pieces galore, if you want to see a near perfect example of clickbait, then I give you: This Japanese High School Student's Room Will Amaze You. Now, it is actually kinda cool, but it's still clickbait. That isn't to say there isn't actual content there, there certainly is and sometimes it's quite decent, yesterday I was reading a post about Hard West, which is a game I'm very interested in. But their content isn't really about games, it's always been a sort of mishmash of nerd interests and general Japanese pop culture, fluff pieces about anime, Japanese snack foods, cosplay, and games. It's never really been a serious gaming site.
And I think the quality of Kotaku speaks volumes about this particular scandal, because if a frankly low-effort publication like themselves are speaking up about blacklists, and pissing off publishers, then what the hell are the more well respected 'real' games sites doing? Why are they not stepping up? This should be a much bigger issue than it is, yet a lot in the games media are taking the side of the games publishers. You'd think that if Kotaku was so terrible, other publications could indeed step up, but the fact they've not demonstrates perfectly the sad state of games journalism. In the PC Gaming forum, there was a link posted from gamezone, and it shows exactly what is wrong with this situation:Sure, Gamers wanted to know if Fallout 4 were in development. And at the proper time, presumably E3 (when Fallout 4 actually was revealed), they would have. The truth would have been made public with or without Kotaku’s leak because that was part of Bethesda’s marketing plan.
Utterly sycophantic. That's supposed to be how games journalism is done? That they are not just happy to be an extention of Bethesda's marketing plan, but that everyone else should be too, because that's the proper order? It's all part of the plan, apparently. This is embarrasing, cowardly 'journalism' that's afraid of being critical of the big publishers.
Speaking of actual games criticism, I've been meaning to ask you Johnny, is there anyone you'd recommend? I've quite enjoyed Errant Signal's youtube channel, and I'm always on the lookout for more voices that will offer deeper criticisms and insights into games. Thanks 0 -
-
-
Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 30,020 CMod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 28727
To be fair Johnny, I don't think people are using the term clickbait without merit here. I mean, take one look at Kotaku and you have fluff pieces galore, if you want to see a near perfect example of clickbait, then I give you: This Japanese High School Student's Room Will Amaze You.
Yep, that absolutely is a clickbait headline, although I don't always think there is a particularly nuanced way to sell fluff pieces. And you're right - as someone who has been reading Kotaku for the guts of a decade now, they have always been heavily focused on a mix of reporting, features and fluff. Their original 'blog' form was obviously a lot more casual than it is today. When it started bridging the gap between enthusiast blog and more serious journalistic endeavour is when there was a bit of dissonance, although also plenty of good stuff too. The one thing I do like about the site is it has always allowed writers to do their own thing - certainly, for better or worse, all of their staff have very distinct interests and styles.
Still, I do think 'clickbait' is thrown around rather nonchalantly, and I've definitely seen it used on the likes of Eurogamer as a misjudged synonym for 'I don't like this story!!!'. But when there's sites like Viral Nova out there (google it, I'm not giving them the satisfaction of a hyperlink
) I think the crimes committed by gaming outlets tend to be quite low down the spectrum - especially since they're usually backed up by actual content, however light it may be.Speaking of actual games criticism, I've been meaning to ask you Johnny, is there anyone you'd recommend? I've quite enjoyed Errant Signal's youtube channel, and I'm always on the lookout for more voices that will offer deeper criticisms and insights into games. Thanks
As I said earlier, Kill Screen are by far my favourite - they're running a Kickstarter for new print volumes at the moment as well (although shipping means I had to stick with the digital editions
). If there's a more reliable source for consistently strong critical pieces, I haven't found it Look up their pieces on something like The Beginner's Guide - they have some fascinating observations on games like that.
Other than that I just stumble upon pieces from time to time. I like some of Leigh Alexander's writing a lot, even if she is enemy no 1 of GG (endears me to her if anything :pac:). Her piece on MGSV was a good one. Tim Rogers stuff on Kotaku used to be great, not sure if he's writing much these days anywhere. Used to love Randy Smith and Clint Hocking in Edge, really disappointed they retired / were got rid of a year or two ago - Steven Poole is the only of their columnists I really dig these days (I find Ian Bogost's stuff oddly lacking).
Some of the Eurogamer weekend columnists are excellent.0 -
-
That was the video that ended up having me unsubscribe to TB. I like his WTF videos and I did enjoy his hearthstone shinanigans quite a bit. But I always find his talks about the industry videos to be a chore at best and frustrating at worse.
On the whole blacklisting discussion. I thought Kotaku brought it up more because they were getting hammered over and over in their comments over the late reviews of Fallout 4 and Assassins Creed. Which kind of makes this being a hot button topic rather hilarious cause it was set off not by any notion of blowing the lid on anything but as a statement on why they have late reviews/limited access on such prominent titles. They've discussed the fact they've been blacklisted before many years ago and did a news story on the blacklisting in much the same manner then too.0 -
-
Advertisement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2zaW1sQg0M
Advertisement